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Thursday, June 28, 2012

As the 4th of July holiday nears and everyone is
gearing up for parties and barbeques, I would like to take a minute to reflect
on the history of recycling in this country. Recycling isn’t a new idea brought
on by the “Green Revolution”. America was made stronger through re-use and
recycling. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at wartime efforts.

During WWII America was in full swing
with efforts to get people to re-use for as long as possible and recycle many
metals, fabric, cooking fats and other materials needed for the war
effort.Japan cut off access to rubber
in Indochina and German U-boats threatened interception of rubber coming out of
Africa and South America. So rubber drives popped up all over the country and
it became almost impossible to buy tires for anything.

As is still the case, making metal from ore takes more
energy than making it from scrap. Aluminum drives were everywhere as the
government needed it for making aircraft. Children showed up in large numbers
donating their toys, mostly made of metal in those days, to the war effort
(sorry, Erector sets).

Paper was being
recycled in huge numbers to make boxes for shipping supplies to troops. A lot
of blood plasma was sent this way.

Recycling wasn’t only important during wartime either. While
the percentage of raw materials supplied to manufacturers has varied,
recyclables have remained an integral part of America’s industrial base for
over a century. It is more expensive to mine new materials and create a product
than it is to use scrap. Energy, water, resources, and pollutants (which we
have to deal with in many different and often expensive ways) are all saved by
recycling.

So, recycling makes good economic sense as well as being
patriotic.

Did I mention that recycling creates jobs?

And in the United
States, according to the U.S. Recycling Economic Information Study, there are
more than 56,000 recycling and reuse establishments in US and they employ
approximately 1.1 million people. This number of workers is comparable to the
automobile and truck manufacturing industry in the region, and is significantly
larger than the mining and waste management and disposal industries there. In
addition, wages for workers in the recycling industry are notably higher than
the national average for all industries. Overall, annual revenues of about $236
billions are generated. (all-recycling-facts.com)

To think, the recycling rate in the U.S. has been hovering
around 30-34% for quite some time now. It has been estimated that up to 75% of
our waste is readily recyclable. Imagine the economic benefits if we got to
that number!

Let’s take a first step if you haven’t been recycling up
until now and this 4thof July, recycle all you can. And remember,
you are helping the economy too!

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

I recently had the pleasure of throwing a party at my home
for my son’s first birthday. We all know a first birthday party is really for
the parents to celebrate keeping their sanity during the first year, but I
digress. I have thrown many parties before, so I am a seasoned veteran of most
green things you can do for a party. For example: I have washable plastic
plates, reusable silverware, re-usable table cloths, recycle bins, drinks that
are served in re-usable glasses, and other beverages that come in recyclable
containers. Rarely is there much waste at a party at my house.

Now, did I mention that this birthday party was HUGE? I have
never had 65 people at my house for a party before. Nor did I ever have to
figure in the catering fiasco. Does the chicken really have to come in a paper
box that I can’t recycle due to grease? Why does the shredded beef have to be
shrink-wrapped in plastic? And don’t forget the “mom factor”. This refers not
to me but to my mom who can find a way to get involved in anything. She did
find some awesome pop-up
recycle bins that we were able to use in various places in the yard and
garage (and are reusable for future parties I might add). But she also wanted
heavy duty paper plates, plastic silverware, and way more paper napkins than I
will use in a lifetime.

So, what do you do in a situation like this? How do you find
a balance between convenience and over the top environmentally minded? Blending
the two and taking a few small steps toward a greener solution can help take
this daunting task and make it a smaller more manageable one.

I ended up using
paper plates because the alternative was to buy 50 more washable plastic ones
that I would probably never need again and are made using non-renewable
resources. We donned the plastic tablecloths, half of which we saved and are
using again for our much smaller 4th of July BBQ.Plastic silverware was the unfortunate best
option due to the number of people and kids running around and also not wanting
to lose my real silverware to the trash. But there is an upside! Some of the
food was made by me and family members and was served in reusable containers. Some
of the catered food came in aluminum trays (which we know to be recyclable).
The leftover food was able to be taken home by guests in recyclable aluminum
to-go trays (thanks for finding these, Mom!). Most of the decorations were
paper and were promptly recycled. All the drinks were in reusable cups or in
containers that ultimately ended up in the recycling as well. And of course, we
can’t forget the presents! All of the wrapping paper was recycled and we are
saving the gift bags to use again.

At the end of the party we ended up with two 33 gallon
garbage bags, and nine 18 gallon recycle bins over flowing! I see more trash
than that in a week at some houses in town so I think we did pretty well. Were
there things we could have done better? Sure. I had a nightmare about the
amount of trash we did have if I am going to be completely open and honest.

The biggest hurdle was trying to inform guests about what to
recycle. As much as I would love to believe that everyone I am related to and
friends with recycles, I know that is simply not the case. At the end of the
night, if you had driven by, you could have seen my husband and me digging
through trash and recycling and moving things to their correct bins. That would
have been a great picture to put on facebook. Luckily no one captured that
photo… as far as I know.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

3 ways to… 5 things that are… 10 strategies for…

These days everyone is trying to get you to implement their
“easy steps to success” for multiple things. I am not here to tell you how to
be perfect in any way or to tell you that you need x, y, or z to be successful
in life or love. My goal is simple. I want to offer a glimpse into the life of
a self –proclaimed “greenie” to share stories of the complexities and struggles
in my everyday greenish life. I hope that I can share some fun, insight, and
ideas that you can take with you and share with others and to share your
stories with me. I call this blog Greening Steps because that is what it is. This
is a way for us to take steps forward that are more sustainable. Like babies
taking their first steps of freedom, we can get up and take small steps toward
greening our lives. We may stumble and fall but ultimately, we are going
somewhere. Maybe we don’t quite know exactly where that is, but we can continue
taking baby steps to get us there.